You can see her winning entry on this post, and her other entry on this post.

And here are the results of the competition. Hopefully they will be showing the winning entries soon.

by Kathryn Gilbertson
The structure of New Zealand’s population is rapidly changing. The “baby boomers” are fast approaching retirement age, which means that by the 2040s, the population aged 65+ will have doubled, and the proportion aged 85+ will have quadrupled.

My poster entry for this year’s EIDD Design for All competition aims to encourage people to think beyond a “typical user” – to realise the population is diverse with very different needs. This is quite a broad concept and should definitely be applied to thinking about the need of the elderly.

The use of health services rapidly increases with age. There is also a sharp increase in the prevalence of disability with increasing age.

Age related disabilities such as sensory impairments, arthritis and dementia put great demands on the health system. As New Zealand’s population quickly ages, imagine the issues that will arise for the health system in the near future. It is expected there will be an increase in hospital costs of 42%, and a 31% increase in primary care costs over the next two decades. Projections also show that expenditure on disability support services could increase by 77% by 2021 (since 2004). Read more about the impact of NZ’z ageing population on disability and health services in this Ministry of Health background paper. [right click here to download PDF]

More elderly people. Very soon. Statisics NZ puts the figure at 1.14 million people in New Zealand aged 65+ by 2051. That’s a fair few! Currently, a robotic solution to cope with demand in rest homes is being researched by Auckland University and a major Korean research institute. Documented in this TV3 news video, this solution may be less than ideal, but necessary. Plenty of other issues really need to be planned for: transport, housing, community support … the list goes on.

Jan Tischold is a famous designer who has dedicated his life to typography. He is a ‘leading advocate for modernist design’. (Wikipedia) He designed a “universal alphabet” and also a number of modernist sans serif fonts including Transit, Saskia, Zeus and Sabon (pictured).

Swiss Typography and modernism were the inspiration for my second poster entry into the EIDD Ico-grada competition.

The concept for this poster took a lot of time and research. I came across the idea with the universal stick man throughout the idea generation phase with other classmates. It is a very diverse icon and was easily altered to convey ideas of disability. I created my own version in Illustrator and varied the shape by eliminating specific parts. The idea of inclusion and solidarity was represented by having the stick men standing connected like that of a paper doll chain.

So can being obese be classed as having a disability?


Well, the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) defines disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of an individual.” Obesity itself can be defined as “A condition where there is excess body weight due to an abnormal accumulation of fat”. Obesity may impair the individual’s ability to perform an activity in a normal way, such as that of walking therefore obesity can be considered as a disability. It could also be argued that due to mental issues that make a person want to eat more or exercise less then they are in fact disabled.

The stereotype of a person in a wheel chair used internationally to represent the disabled community is very off the mark and we need to open our minds to all sorts of diverse conditions.

Futures:
Innovative design solutions that fit in unnoticed with our daily lives such as Nintendo WII are taking in the health consideration by creating socially responsible games that encourage movement in order to succeed in the game, and even going as far as creating virtual personal trainers for such pursuits as Pilates and Yoga.
In terms of design awareness the DBA design competition ‘Sedentary Lives’ is encouraging designers to look at solutions to deal with our increasingly large and immobile culture. This is in response to the estimation that 60 percent of the UK population could be obese by 2050. In their words “Getting people moving is a MASSIVE challenge”.

For the EIDD competition that we entered as a design group I used a pun, playing your hand (literally) at designing for all. I used a playing card and transformed the centre of it into a design for all-related design, consisting of imagery related to designing for all; functional and user-friendly objects.

As the playing hand could have several connotations, I used type to collaborate and tie it all in to create understanding. The reason for such a plain and simple black and white colour scheme to me indicates a straight up and honest attitude and approach, which is what I was trying to convey. It should not be a complicated matter- creating design that can relate to a wide range of society is important. We no longer cater for the ‘norm’, or the old-fashioned ‘average’ user. We are a colourful and multicultural society and design must move with society.

Each and every designer has their own personal style and influences, so how do we translate these personal designs for everybody to understand? For designers working in large establishments, there are all the confinements and restrictions which is a way that we can control what is being translated … but what about designers working alone?

For an example of design that everyone can understand I’ll refer to universal road signs and symbols – designers are confined to using specific dimensions and colour schemes to translate the meaning of signs for a worldwide audience to understand. These universal road signs, whilst different from our road signs in New Zealand, follow an almost identical format.

If we are to control the way designers work, how will we allow creativity to flow? What a boring world we would live in if everything was defined and controlled.

You may have found your life was going very well until one day something very unfortunate happens. You became ill or even had an accident and you can no longer enjoy life as you used to. Simple everyday actions suddenly create small problems and you now have to rethink every movement. You may have to rely on other peoples help and not everyone is as accepting to others as they should be. Our project involves a way of creating a public awareness about the diversity of our society, the physical and social barriers associated with close-minded design and embracing new ways of designing for all. Fundamentally it is about creating equality.

Freedom Movement

My poor eyesight has opened my eyes to the world that exists for those who are visibly impaired – this is something that I can start thinking about on a personal level; making a difference for those in a similar situation as myself. I find that I really struggle around the University with dark areas, such as stairwells, where the lighting is insufficient. In a previous design project, fellow design student Jeremy Star designed posters that highlighted the danger of improperly lit areas around the University campus. 

Our design task here at University is on a scale that I think is a good starting platform – somewhere to begin making a noise, creating awareness. Disability awareness week and other events at our university here at Otago are becoming more widespread and are definitely well received. It is promising that people are taking an interest in those less fortunate than themselves health-wise, and are getting involved. 

My poster that I have created for this project is about accessible design. It is a ‘build up’ of lots of handwritten words, sentences and phrases that relate to accessible design in today’s society (arranged in the shape of a staircase- something that is not overly accessible for lots of people) and talks about the complexity of accessibility issues. The textual quality alludes to the the emotion and fragility associated with accessibility and design. I feel quite strongly about accessible design; people must be given the chance to go wherever they may wish to go no matter their age, shape, size or impairments they may have. In my eyes accessible design has the power to make our world a better place.

Designer Tony Malone has researched the area of a diverse, yet inclusive typeface. “We conduct research on screen and display typefaces and paper stocks to improve legibility and usability, as well as more theoretical work on diversity and equality, including essays, consultations, experimental design projects.”

Results coming out of this are the typefaces:
• Proteus Serif: An accessible typeface for use on screen
• Diversity ONE: designed to be the world’s most accessible typeface

APHont

Signage design needs careful consideration of the readability of particular typefaces. From this AIGA article on legibility for older viewers:

“The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) has set down rules for the use of appropriate typefaces in signage systems. These standards insure that more uniform typefaces are used, and that overly thick or thin stroke-widths, and overly condensed or expanded styles are not used. While these standards are an excellent starting point, it may be necessary to consider additional factors in regards to typeface selection for the aging eye.”

The American Printing house for the blind have developed a font called APHont, designed with low level vision in mind.

Looking at existing signage, the use of typography is often that of the authoritarian sans-serif category. Helvetica can often be seen as the ‘choice of the masses’. It is a popular, reliable yet a disreputable font that was made for clarity. For these reasons Helvetica is popular within signage and has been used to brand some well known products.

Helvetica on New York City, Subway

Visit Red’s blog, and read his story, and the experiences of other New Zealanders living with disabilities in this book, ‘Life is for Living’. [right click here to download, 1.8 Mb]

Inclusivity is very important regardless of age or ability. Designers can promote this by realising everyone is different, therefore the best solutions for a diverse society consider all users. In one poster entry for this year’s EIDD competition, I worked on the theme of liberating diversity. Everyone is unique, so uniformity will never be the best solution in a design sense.

As with the EIDD, the 48 hour Inclusive Design Challenge aims to emphasise the importance of inclusive design. The challenge gets teams of designers to come up with inclusive innovations, involving members of the disabled community in the design process. Check out this year’s competition results.

To get a range of perspectives when attempting inclusive design, bodystorming is a technique that can be used to empathise with a wide range of users. Below is a clip about experience prototyping released by Indiana University. It shows how bodystorming could be used to attempt to experience a disability. Employing this technique is insightful in learning how different types of users interact with a space or perform a task. This would lead to better solutions and more accessible design.

A ramp and accessible seating in Alabama.

The ADA standards for Accessible design (ADA standards) require inclusion of features such as accessible parking, routes, toliet features, public telephones, and spectator seating areas. This photograph is an example of an accessible route.
Design for all requires that any user can access, use, and understand any part of the environment with as much independence as possible. Design for all puts into practise respect for human diversity in environments, products and services.

Inclusive design is about addressing the needs and services of the widest possible audience, irrespective of age or ability. The term ‘Design for all’ ensures an inclusive design focus that integrates the ageing population, and represents the shift toward merging disabled people into mainstream society.

Accessibility is a general term used to describe the degree to which a product (e.g., device, service, environment) is accessible by as many people as possible. Accessibility is often used to focus on people with disabilities and their right of access to entities, and is an important element of inclusive design.